Connect With Us

Limbaugh blasts 'biggest tax increase in the history of the world'

Rush Limbaugh talked health care on the radio earlier, yoking the decision to the economy and describing it in terms that will be key to the GOP messaging going forward:

The chief justice was hell-bent to find a way to make this law applicable, so he just decided, you know what, as a tax increase, it works, because there's no limit on the federal government's ability to tax. And it's right there in the preamble of the Constitution, right there, Article 1, Section 8, the general welfare clause, it's been established Congress can tax whatever, whoever, whenever, how much they want. Even when they don't ask for it, the Supreme Court is gonna find a way to make what they want to do legal because John Roberts said it's not our job here to forbid this. It's not our job to protect people from outcomes. It's not our job to determine whether it is right or wrong or any of that. We just get to look at it. We can't forbid this. This is what the elected representatives of the people want.

No, the elected representatives of the people were deceived. Remember yesterday I asked you, if this decision went this way, what was your initial reaction going to be. And how many of you were deflated as you can be because the way this reported? The first thing that came down, the mandate, unconstitutional, that was the first thing everybody reported. Mandate unconstitutional, big sigh of relief. And then within moments, wait a minute, wait a minute, we're reading further. Hold it just a second. The mandate's unconstitutional, but the court has decided it's a tax, and therefore it's okay.

So Obamacare is nothing more than the largest tax increase in the history of the world. And the people who were characterizing it as such were right and were telling the truth. We have the biggest tax increase in the history of the world right in the middle of one of this country's worst recessions. In fact, as the vice president said yesterday, a depression for millions of Americans. The chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts, said, 'It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.' Not our job...

...We were deceived. Obamacare was a lie. It was a stealth tax on all Americans, and nobody knew it until today. Not officially."

There are a couple of components here, including conservative ire with Justice Roberts, the pick of former President George W. Bush, over the ruling.

But the tax message was a big piece of GOP messaging in the 2010 midterm races, and it was effective. It likely will be again, at least downballot, in some places. But it's not the message Romney delivered earlier, as he modulates his pitch to recognize the politically popular components of the law with the overall public distaste for the process of the larger Obama bill.